Independent and experienced viewpoints on technology, network services and support, social media, usability, trends, and insights for associations and nonprofit organizations.

March 09, 2012

Personalize if You're Going to Personalize

I am a member of several associations. This week I received an “anniversary card” from one of them and I was surprised at how impersonal it was. However, the card was personalized on one side with my name printed in a graphic format. The rest of the card was very generic promotional content and for the most part selling the association to me – even though I have been a member for some time. The content was telling me about meetings I could attend or other services I could use. Here’s the missed opportunity – take what you know about me and use it to further personalize the card. Thank me for all the volunteer work I have done, list some of my more highly rated speaking engagements, remind me of something that happened a long time ago, summarize the discounts I received for being a member, and so on. All of this information is available in the association management system (AMS). Since the organization is already pulling some of what you’re custom printing from the AMS, pull more, personalize more.

It also occurs to me that the association could easily send me the anniversary wishes electronically – thereby giving themselves even more opportunity to personalize the content and reduce their production cost.

1 Comment

Sounds like an advanced form of mail merge.

I once hit 10 years in an association. I received a nice personalized email, followed by a less personalized gift. As the former notified me of the latter, the reduced personalization was no big deal. The physical acknowledgement was a big deal.

You are right, there should have been more, but we both know that getting to that point is a process. The end goal.